Adiya stayed in the throne room despite it clearing after Hera disappeared. Ichor recolored the marble floor where Hera had been. There was a sinking feeling in Adiya's chest as she continued to look at the golden liquid.
This was her fault.
Hera had only stirred up some old memories Adiya would've rather forgotten, she tried to explain to Zeus but he wouldn't listen. He was livid with rage. She wouldn't let her have the time to explain. When Zeus found Adiya crying in her bedroom Adiya had never been planning on ratting Hera out. She was going to defend the queen's actions. The moment she said her name though, Zeus put it together. Hera did something. He didn't know what but she had to pay the consequences.
The mortal girl rested her back against the wall tiredly, she slumped down it, her eyes never leaving the stains. She wished she had never met Zeus that day in the park, she couldn't leave him either though. It was too late for that. Hera would get the blame.
And she was tired of Hera being the scapegoat for everything that happened to her.
As she contemplated her choices she started to feel cold. She rubbed her shoulders, trying to warm up. But the longer she did so, the colder it became and she began to feel a sense of loneliness. Her heart ached. Her body numbed. She looked over at the hearth expecting to see Hestia glaring at her, but was greeted with a scarier sight. The fire was dying. No, she thought. She stood up and ran to it. She had to save it. She remembered Hera telling her about the fire. It was at least a year ago. She couldn't let it die. She couldn't lose the strand of light this mountain had left.
"The hearth is supposed to be a home's fire, but ... it's more than that. It's sacred. To me. To Hestia. That everlasting flame in the throne room, it's sacrosanct for everybody on this mountain, Little Vex. The hearth is home, it speaks to family. It signifies a community. This is a symbol of unity among Olympus, for it to pass on implies Hestia has abandoned us. It would mean she has no family left to share a home. She has no home to give to a family. It is imperative to keep it alive. If this fire dies. Then she does too," Hera became quiet. A hero had been calling out to the gods during the week asking Hestia for guidance. At that very moment, due to this, Hestia was in the mortal world. So, without the goddess' knowledge, Hera allowed Adiya to go near the eternal fire. There would have been no way the goddess would've let Adiya near the hearth otherwise.
She looked at Hera's face. Her eyes glowing in the fire's light. Her chocolaty eyes held a heaviness and depth to them, years of stories and wisdom that had all gone untold. She didn't smile, it was rare to see the woman smile.
The wrinkles in her eyes said something else however.
The goddess looked back at Adiya catching her staring. Her pulse jumped. She had looked into Hera's eyes plenty of times before. This time it was different. There was an intensity that Adiya had never seen. The monarch's eyes didn't show her to be irate or disturbed. In fact, it was almost tender. Adiya's eyes scanned her features, her wonderful, delicate skin. Her full, red lips. Her big, dark eyes. The strands of grey hair that cornered her eye which contrasted her long, dark, Auburn hair. A tall, dainty nose which influenced her face to appear long. The tranquil, apple light of the fire painting her face, stroking it delicately as though it feared marring her appearance with a substandard shade of red.
The goddess tilted her head at the mortal.
The mortal looked away back at the hearth. She took a gander at the smoldering of the coals and relished in the heat. She wasn't sure whether it belonged to the fire. "Do you like Hestia? Forgive my intrusion, but you and her never really talk. Are you two even on good terms?"
The goddess' eyes wandered to the hearth's rim. She bit her bottom lip in an apprehensive manner, her shoulders drooping, giving away how tired the queen was. Then very slowly straightened her back so she once again towered over her companion. Her eyes delicate again,"We're sisters. We've encountered everything together. Times change, our blood does not. Just because we don't talk doesn't mean I don't care for her. Even if she doesn't care for me. I feel this is my defect. Administering to the individuals who couldn't care less for me. Regulating to those who won't nurture me. I do hope that one day we can restore our bond. In any case, at the present time, that thought isn't possible. So I leave trinkets here and there or do small favors for her to show I still care. That, despite all these years I still think about her."
"Come on, Hestia. Please. Please! She still loves you! There is still a family! Please!" She began to cry out loud, her eyes letting go of the tears that had been accumulating. She kept running in and out of the throne room looking for wood outside and around the temple-like building to add to the fire. She cried for help but no one seemed to hear her. She thought of Demeter, but Demeter wouldn't be in her right state of mind to help her sister. She remembered seeing the goddess meandering through the streets of Olympus grieving for her daughter, the plants growing dry and grey as she passed them. Who would be able to help Hestia? Who would know how to revive her fire?
Hera would know.
She would know how to help. It was her sister. But where did she go?
Ares! He had to know! Hold on Hestia, we'll help you, she picked herself up and ran down the main road that ran from the top of the mountain to the golden gates of Olympus. By the speed of which she ran past the homes of Zeus and Hera, Demeter, and what Hera liked to call her office home she knew she would make Hermes proud but despite this fact she pushed herself to run faster. She could see the top of Ares' home. The black slanting of his roof.
"Ares!" She cried. "O' Ares, mighty god of war! I summon thee, lord and power! I beseech thy aid!" No answer or any form of power made itself present. She threw herself on his obsidian door once she arrived and rapped at it. "Ares, please! It's urgent!"
Adiya continued to attack his door. She had no other ideas was becoming more and more ill by the second, and with the rest of Pandora's Four's fading, she didn't want to bother her. Apollo couldn't even help Pandora's Four. She didn't know of anyone else who'd be able to help. Well, she could think of one. But she didn't want to go to Zeus.
He had done enough.
After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened. She was greeted by a surprising sight. Athena had answered the door.
Her long hair was let down and her clothes seemed suspicious. Wrinkled in a suggestive way. Adiya didn't want to think it was true, but there was new gossip on Olympus. Rumors that Ares and Athena had a secret relationship behind Zeus' back. She just couldn't see it though. The two were constantly at each other's throats, then again so were she and Hera.
Despite their constant, public quarrels. The goddess was quite kind to her when they were alone or in the presence of someone foreign to their relationship.
She thought back to the day when Hera took her back home to visit friends and what little family she had left. Back to The Valley. Back to Reseda.
Whore her mother had called her. Called them both. Something had flashed dangerously in Hera's eyes that day.
Adiya didn't see it when her mother had insulted the goddess. Truth be told, the ruler kept a quiet veneer as her mother shrieked obscenities at her, calling Hera impure. A demon. In fact, Hera seemed fascinated by her mother's reaction. Almost amused. No doubt, her mother believed that it was Hera that had taken Adiya. The woman believed Hera had ripped away what she called "her only support in life."
Then the mother turned on her daughter, she pointed a finger at her chest. A spur of words aimed at her.
Whore. Puta. Slut. Ramera. Bitch. Pendeja. Dumbass. Cabróna.
A familiar twinge of pain struck at her heart but other than that, she remained emotionless used to the valley of words her mother used to describe Adiya often while she was still in school and her father was on a business trip.
Hera stepped between mother and daughter towering over both. That was when Adiya saw it. The impending danger that showed in Hera's eyes. She cast a shadow upon the older woman and sneered, her eyes glowing and eyeing it's prey the way a tiger would.
Adiya's mother had been beautiful once, but now her superficial appearance matched her inner one. She was ugly with wrinkles that folded her pasty, yellow skin. Her matted, thin hair rested wildly upon her head. Her teeth had yellowed and fragmented; a permanent frown was carved onto her face which made her beady eyes seem meaner.
Hera wrinkled her nose at her. The smell of alcohol and cigarettes was strong. She looked back at Adiya. She realized that the goddess was comparing the two, mother from daughter, and she couldn't find what it was that made the two related.
"Let's go, Little Vex. Our home waits." Her voice sounded cold, her British accent was heavier than usual. She headed toward the door and opened it. Our home, was Hera accepting the mortal? Or trying to shame the mother? The old hag didn't pay any mind. She screeched at the queen.
"Yeah, that's right! Go back to where you came from, Guera!" Hera let out her usual one syllable laugh. The two mortals startled at the noise. It was such a foreign noise that came out of her one could only associate it with the sound of oncoming tragedy. She turned sharply back toward Adiya's mother.
"Call me what you will. At least I have a common decency to keep my personal hygiene clean, Beaner. And if that offends you, I've lived longer than you think. I know forgotten insults that would put you to disgrace. Vex, let's leave the scum of the Earth to themselves and socialize with the more edified."
"Yes, Hera."
"What do you need?" Athena opened the door a bit wider, raising a brow at her impatiently. Adiya looked past her; into the dark hallway. It irked the goddess and she stepped back into her view, frowning at Adiya. "I'm looking for Ares." Athena began to open her mouth,"It's urgent, Athena. The fire. It's dying. I know Hera can help save it but I don't know where she is."
Athena studied her. Her grey eyes ran her through sending her chills; as if trying to catch her lie. She went back inside leaving the door ajar. Adiya didn't need to go inside to know she was fetching Ares. She could hear her voice echo through the temple and his hard voice answering hers. Hushed whispers. Hurried voices. Alarming tones. She knew they were nervous, what if the fading was now affecting those outside the Four? Ares stepped through the door. He was a grand man of great height and muscle. His sun burnt skin carried fading, white scars as proof of his battles as god of war. His beady eyes held the same harsh shade of brown as his mother's but when placed under a light shone red; his black hair in a wind swept fringe up. Something about his frame, his posture, the way he frowned and carried himself, reminded the mortal of his father, but the glare that glued her gaze to his was Hera's. The shape of his brow and the tilt of his head was Hera. He cleared his throat as she would and asked,"Is it true? My aunt has abandoned us?"
Coarse and like thunder, his voice rang through the temple. Athena stood behind him, holding the same posture he had.
"If we hurry she won't. Lord Ares, we need to speak with your mother. I'm sure she knows how to save her sister."
Adiya had wiped away her tears but her cheeks remained wet. She swallowed the lump in her throat and still her voice caught. She steadied herself, making her body sturdy and she trembled. This wasn't the way she wanted to present herself to the gods of war.
Ares looked at Athena with the same intensity Hera looked at her sometimes. Athena looked back at him returning the gaze. Did she look at Hera the same way?
Ares nodded and looked back at Adiya stepping into the sun. His flaming eyes stuck to her, his jaw line structured like Zeus' but the determination in his eye built like Hera's.
"How did you come to meet my husband, Little Vex?"
Ares walked toward her and held out his hand,"Come with me."
"I was at the park. It was a friend's birthday and I was going to celebrate with them."
She took his hand. She turned to take a gander at the goddess of wisdom. Her startling gaze held hers.
"I met Zeus as I walked to the corner after the party. He had walked by the same bus stop I waited at. Told me he felt compelled to stay with me until my bus arrived, he didn't want to see me getting hurt."
His hands were rough. Calloused, yet soft. He led her away from the prying eyes of the gray-eyed maiden.
"I would take that bus everyday to work. I would have to wait at the bus stop everyday to go back home."
"I do indeed know where my mother goes. But no one else must know. No one," he said as he pulled her back up the hill.
"Every evening he would be there."
He led her back to the temple she began to call home.
"At first I thought it to be a mere coincidence every time he passed by. Eventually, he would begin to wait at the stop. He said his name was William, and we would talk until the bus arrived."
He pulled her through the temple, through the always confusing crisscross of hallways that Zeus and Hera would navigate so easily.
"Eventually, I told him of my troubles at home."
They passed by a large oak door where Zeus would preside in doing work.
"Why Dad left Mom. Why he couldn't take me with him."
They walked past the golden ball room. Quiet and cold.
"All the horrible things Mom would do to me even when Dad was around."
They walked past the kitchen.
"I would always ask questions about him. His family. Where he lived. Where he came from."
Ares was huffing now, Adiya struggled to keep up with his pace.
"He always responded with the same thing,"
Ares had let go of her hand and the distance between them became greater.
" 'It's complicated.' "
The god looked back at her. He stopped walking, waited impatiently for her to catch up.
"Finally, one day he told me he was a god. To prove it, he made one miracle happen everyday for one month."
"Get on my back," he said. Hunching over so she could reach him.
"He never told me who he was, but on the last day of the month. He asked me to leave with him. To go to Mount Olympus with him, away from my pathetic life in The Valley."
Adiya hopped on and held tight as the god of war sped past the kitchen and into the back hall of the temple.
"I was desperate. I wanted something new. Something I thought he could give me."
Ares burst through the back door and ran through Hera's garden.
"He promised me he would."
Ares sprinted through the garden's length towards its closed off area. The topic that had started this mess.
"But you knew he was married."
"Close your eyes!" He ordered and Adiya felt herself get sucked into that familiar vacuum that she wished was Hera's divine power taking her back to Sweden.
"Not until I saw your thrones. The way you stared at us, and the empty seat next to you. That's when I realized who he was."
They landed in snow. A blizzard had begun to blow around them whipping their hair around their face, trying to tear at their clothes.
"Did you get what you wanted?"
The two stood up brushing off the snow, and trudging forward. They squinted in the flurry of white.
"Yes, but not from him."
"I think I see her! Up ahead!" Ares announced. Adiya's head followed his finger to a small figure that was balled up pitifully in the snow.
"If my husband couldn't provide you your desire. Then who did?"
"Hera!" She cried. She ran to the goddess. She touched her shoulder, tears falling. Despite the cold, the smell of vanilla reached her nostrils. "Is it her?" Ares was the one who had to catch up this time, taken aback by the mortal's sudden tailwind. Adiya nodded holding Hera tightly. She was cold, like a corpse. She looked down at her face to find that the golden pallor of divinity was gone. Her lips were blue and she was still beaten and bloodied. Adiya's tears fell onto Hera's cheek. Ares stood to the side confused,"That is not my mother."
Adiya didn't respond. She knew it was her. Her hand reached for Hera's and held it. She could recognize her by touch alone. By her sweet smell. She would know her blind, by the way she'd breath and the way she sounded when her feet hit the floor. She would know her in death and insanity.
"Hera, please wake up. Olympus needs you."
The goddess stayed quiet after Adiya answered her question. She looked out over the horizon at the setting sun. They were at the same porch Adiya had tried to throw herself off. At first, the mortal thought the goddess hadn't heard or was disgusted with her confession. Just as she was ready to jump over the cliff again she felt a soft, warm touch hold her hand. The firmness of the grip. The dainty but powerful tenderness it held. She couldn't mistake it for anyone else's. Hera smiled. It was the first Adiya had ever received that wasn't accompanied with a snide comment. The two continued to watch the sun rise, both hoping that time would not follow.